


Dum Spiro, Spero

by Eisbaerfussel, PottersPink



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Art, Avalon - Freeform, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Immortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:09:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27530548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisbaerfussel/pseuds/Eisbaerfussel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PottersPink/pseuds/PottersPink
Summary: Arthur wakes to the sight of mountains, wildflowers and fields. He lies on a shore, his feet immersed in clear and cold water.
Relationships: Freya/Merlin (Merlin), Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 68





	Dum Spiro, Spero

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the Merlin Resurrection Anthology! featuring art done by my wonderful collaborator, fussel. 
> 
> I'm a little late to the party, but I believe that if you are interested in trying to snag a copy of the anthology, there will be a charity auction for some left-over books & merch in the new year.

Arthur wakes to the sight of mountains, wildflowers and fields. He lies on a shore, his feet immersed in clear and cold water. He inhales.

_Blood, gore and the smell of death. Screams snaking around his legs and pulling at his arms. Mordred, alone and terrible, holding Arthur’s death gripped tightly in his hand._

He exhales.

_I have magic, Arthur. Only for you. Only ever for you._

“Well, are you going to get up or not, Princess? I would say ‘We don’t have all day’, but I’m not sure how much time has passed, or if time is actually a thing here. Funny, ain’t it?” Shuffling, and then, “I think it’s different than out _there,_ anyways.”

Arthur groans. “You talked so much they had to kill you, didn’t you? You were so irritating you got a knife in your gut.”

Tense silence. “Well, talked too much, maybe. And not proud of it.”

At that, Arthur lifts his head, gaze sharp. “What?”

Gwaine looks _ashamed,_ of all things, and Arthur can put two and two together. “Morgana.”

Gwaine lands heavily on the ground next to him. “I failed you. I told Morgana where you were going.”

Arthur stares up at the sky, wonders when it got to be so blue. “It didn’t matter, in the end.” He pauses. “Were you alone?”

Gwaine laughs, but it’s bitter and sad. “No. Percival was there.” He rips grass from the earth, unable to keep still. “You?”

_All your magic, Merlin, can’t save my life._

_I can. I’m not going to lose you._

“No, Merlin was there,” he sighs. “Merlin was always there.”

*****

Arthur doesn’t know how long they stay like that, quiet and thoughtful and melancholic, but then Gwaine leans over and claps him hard on the shoulder.

“Come on,” he says. “I know you’ve been _dying_ to see Elyan and Lancelot again.”

*

Avalon is a place of peace, beauty and eternity; mountains rise high enough to kiss the stars, fields are endless and meadows alive with wildflowers. Cows and horses graze, free and content as can be.

It’s _magic_ , in a way that Arthur has never seen before in his life.

_It’s unfair how I have all of this time to accept magic for what it is, but not when it mattered most._

_*_

Morgana sleeps on the west shore. She lies with her hands folded over her middle, her face an image of peace; no lines or shadows to show the horrors she experienced in life. Her cheeks are pink and lips full, lashes fluttering and casting shadows on the soft angles of her face. She is surrounded by a bed of ferns and roses; both to warn others to keep away as well as to keep her safe.

Sometimes Arthur will go and watch her as the sun sets, watch the way it casts her in the warmest of lights, and thinks, _I hope one day you will heal, Morgana._

Her heart, her mind, her body and soul. Avalon is a place of healing and rest, and Morgana has all the time in the world.

Mordred sleeps on the eastern shore. The boy lies on a bed of thorns, hands clasped tightly in fists crossed over his chest. The sight of him sends shivers down Arthur’s spine and makes his side throb like a fresh bruise; he turns around and leaves before his vision goes completely black.

That is the first and last time he visits Mordred.

*****

Gaius is the first to arrive after Arthur and Gwaine. He tells them he passed in his sleep, at peace and content with Merlin and Gwen and Leon at his side.

Next is Percival, felled in battle defending the kingdom. He walks out of the lake with a look of wonder on his face, bending his knee this way and that way. When Gwaine inquires, Percival tells them he’s been limping for over a decade after being pulled off his horse.

 _I’ve not felt this alive in ages,_ he says.

 _Well, mate,_ Gwaine claps him on the shoulder. _You’re dead._

Then Gwen, sweet, wonderful Gwen, looking not a day older than the last time he saw her. Arthur runs to meet her at the shore, wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her out of the water. He tucks his face into the side of her neck, inhales the scent of lavender and spring and fresh linen, lets her laugh carry him home.

“I’ve missed you,” he sighs, his breath warming her skin, sending a shiver down her spine.

“And I you,” she kisses him, slow and tender and not at all like they haven’t seen each other in decades, like the barrier that separated them wasn’t death. _Now they have all the time in the world._

Arthur puts her down and they walk out of the water together, hand in hand. She slips away as they reach the shore to run into her brother’s arms, spread wide to receive her embrace. And then she goes to Gaius, shaking her head with a smile touched with sadness, but Gaius only gives her a weary, knowing smile in return. He nods, and that seems to be enough.

She breathes a sigh when Lancelot approaches her; he takes her hand in his own and lifts it to his lips. Arthur notices how she relaxes, how she smiles, and how her eyes shine like the stars have come down from the sky to greet her.

Arthur waits for a twinge of jealousy, some spark of that anger and betrayal, but there’s nothing. Only love, acceptance. Peace.

He looks to the west, to Morgana and her place of rest. _Time to heal, for all of us._

*

Gwen passed from old age, leaving quietly in her sleep. She ruled alone and she ruled confidently, with kindness and compassion and patience. She won wars and she lost wars, but her people loved her just as she loved Arthur, and that was enough for her.

“I’m proud of you,” Arthur tells her as the moon rises and the Lady begins to sing. Gwen shifts next to him in the grass and holds his face between her palms, stroking along his cheeks with her thumbs. She blinks tears from her eyes, and Arthur watches them fall, catches them with his fingertips.

Arthur leans in and kisses her brow, her cheek, her mouth. “You’re so wonderful, Guinevere. I’m _so proud of you.”_

*

Leon comes stumbling out of the lake next, the sight of his friends sending him into such a shock he falls over backwards.

Never having seen him react in such a way, Arthur and the other are sent into gales of laughter. It’s full of so much mirth and happiness that his confusion melts into disbelief until Leon is laughing as well, shouting and waving his arms and pulling his brothers to him, overwhelmed at being reunited.

After a few days of celebrating, Arthur asks after Merlin; they spend much of their time in Avalon speaking of him, talking about his magic and speculating on which one of Arthur’s victories were _actually_ his and not Merlin’s, listening to Lancelot tell them of some of his adventures. But Leon is the one to have just seen him, has spent the most time with him in his old age.

Arthur wants to know how his oldest and truest friend is faring, if he’s taken a wife, had children. If Camelot ever became the home it was meant to be, for him.

But instead Leon tells them of Merlin, old and lonely and never quite the same since Guinevere died. Even before, Leon thought that of all of them, Camlann had changed Merlin the most.

He never did take a wife, and magic had never been made legal. Gwen informs them she couldn’t ever get enough support for it, but she never went out of her way to persecute magic users after realizing Merlin’s identity.

Leon goes silent, shoulders slumping. They’re all quiet, minds full of thoughts of their friend left behind.

“He’s completely alone, now.”

Gwaine leans back on his hands, crossing his ankles. “Ah, but the bugger can’t be kicking around for that much longer! You were the oldest knight Camelot has ever seen, Leon. I’m sure Merlin will come bumbling out of that lake in no time.”

But Leon’s mouth presses together in a thin line, his brows knitting together in a frown. There’s something he’s not saying, something _not right_ , but the others don’t notice.

Arthur _does_ notice, and unease settles like a fist around his heart.

*****

It’s been one hundred and thirteen years, and Merlin still hasn’t come.

“Surely magic can’t keep him alive for _this_ long,” Arthur argues.

Gwen places a soothing hand on his arm, her eyes a well of concern; Leon averts his gaze.

*

There is a Lady who lives in Avalon.

They do not see her very often, only a handful of times a year. They do, however, hear her sing every night.

She glides across the surface of the water, in her gowns of starlight and silver and water, singing songs full of so much sadness one’s heart could break from hearing a single note.

There is one day of the year, however, that she comes onto land.

It takes Arthur some time to figure out the date, but eventually he realizes that it’s on the anniversary of his death that she comes ashore, a single rose in her hand, and places it next to Morgana’s bed. Each rose takes root, releasing magic into the earth and over time grows and weaves itself into the roses already there.

One year, when the Lady ventures from her waters and onto the land, Gwen takes courage and approaches her. She stands by her side as she lays the rose next to Morgana, and bows her head in silence as the Lady says a prayer in the language of the Old Religion.

“Who are the roses from?” Gwen asks. The only time they’ve ever seen roses are when the Lady brings them from the water, and the only place on the island where they grow are with Morgana.

“My love brings them,” is all she says, but by the way her smile blossoms like it’s been touched by the first light of spring, it’s _more_.

“Is he not from here?”

Her expression turns sad, and she shakes her head. “No. His place is not here with me.”

*

Arthur sits next to his sister and watches the sun set one hundred and sixty three years after Camlann.

The sound of rustling fabric over foliage alerts him to her presence more than her steps do; the Lady is silent in all but her voice.

She lowers herself to the ground next to him, flattening out the folds in her skirt and tucking her hair behind her ear. Sometimes, in certain light, Arthur thinks he sees a face smudged in dirt when he looks at her; hair tangled and matted and wrists thin and brittle.

But the vision leaves just as quickly as it comes, in the blink of an eye.

All he sees now is the Lady, petite and beautiful and _other._

Someone made of _magic._

“It’s Merlin, isn’t it?”

She freezes, and it’s enough of an answer for Arthur. Rage bubbles under his skin, suddenly and overwhelmingly — he jumps to his feet, picks up the nearest rock and pitches it into the lake. A scream claws its way from his throat; frustration, longing and guilt echo across the still waters.

His eyes burn and he’s breathing hard as he blinks into focus. His hands are shaking and his knees are shaking or perhaps the very earth is shaking — “ _Why?_ Why him?”

“He’s the son of the earth, the sea and the sky; he was, is, and always will be,” She’s crying too, Arthur notices. “He waits on the shore for your return.”

Numbness; it creeps down his spine and forces the breath from his lungs. The ground tilts, sending his world and his heart off balance. “But… how will I know? How will I know it’s time to go back? — Merlin is…

“He’s _alone.”_

She turns away from him, swipes a hand across her cheek. “Fate can be cruel.”

Arthur looks out over the water, tries to see beyond the mists and the mountains and the magic just to maybe catch a glimpse of red, of blue, of Merlin.

“Merlin’s not coming,” he says, but he can’t quite believe the sound of his own voice.

“No,” she whispers. “His place is not here in Avalon.”

“Merlin’s not coming,” he repeats.

_I was born to serve you, Arthur. And I will do it gladly, until the day I die._

_Oh, Merlin,_ Arthur drops his head into his hands, _You don’t have to. Not like this._

_Never like this._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! comments & kudos are always appreciated <3


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